As can be seen in the provenance, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries this picture enjoyed a certain esteem as a work by Watteau. Curiously, it seems to have been passed over in silence by many of the critics including de Goncourt, Réau, and the team of Dacier, Vuaflart, and Hérold. Adhémar was the first scholar to specifically doubt the attribution but she muddied the water by proposing that it was “dans le genre de Boucher,” an opinion that was then repeated by Macchia and Montagni.

Recognition that it was by the young Lancret came only at the very end of the twentieth century. His early manner is revealed in the woman’s disproportionately large head and her facial features—the large eyes and pointed nose.

It has not been noticed until now that the actor in L’Entretien dans un parc appears in another early picture by Lancret, a Fête champêtre that was once in the collection of Lord Listowel; for the latter painting, see Wildenstein, Lancret (1924), cat. 340. It sold in London, Christie's, July 8, 1983, lot 8; was with the Stair Sainty Gallery in London, and is now in the collection of the Fondation Bemberg. In its more than two-hundred-year history, it has always been accepted as a work of Lancret. The heads of the actor in the two pictures are at slightly different angles but the costumes and the gesture of the right hand are identical. This is a very convenient affirmation of the attribution of our painting to Lancret.

That L'Entretien dans le parc still has something of Watteau’s spirit is also indicative that it is an early work by his former assistant.